Displacement, Segregation (News)
Report: some Pleasanton apartment complexes discriminate
Dateline:
08/22/2008A new study released by ECHO Housing, a nonprofit housing counseling agency, says 30 percent of Pleasanton apartment complexes that were audited showed some form of discrimination based on race.
Foreclosed properties become rentals
Dateline:
08/18/2008AS the mortgage meltdown forces more homes into foreclosure in the Bay Area, some of these properties are being picked up by investors who are putting them back into the rental market.
The upshot of this activity is that more single-family houses are starting to show up as rentals in parts of the East Bay — such as Antioch — and in San Joaquin County. In addition, some condo for-sale properties in downtown Oakland — such as the Broadway Grand — are being rented out as apartments because developers are having a hard time finding buyers in today's tough housing market.
Some evicted in 'renewal' may get housing help
Dateline:
08/18/2008Descendants of people displaced during the redevelopment of San Francisco's Western Addition and Hunters Point decades ago would be given first priority for the city's affordable housing under a measure pending before city leaders.
The proposal, which is scheduled for a vote by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors on Sept. 9, would give housing reparations citywide to people forced out of the Fillmore area in the 1950s and 1960s and Hunters Point in the 1970s, as well as their children and grandchildren. They would be put at the top of the city's lottery system that awards much-coveted affordable housing units.
Despite declines, Silicon Valley still has most costly U.S. housing, survey says
Dateline:
08/14/2008Don't let those "price reduced" signs get you thinking that homeownership in Silicon Valley is a bargain: The San Jose metro area is still the nation's most expensive housing market, according to a national survey released Thursday.
True, the median price of houses sold in the San Jose metro area in the second quarter fell nearly 13 percent compared with a year earlier. But despite the decline, the median price of $755,000 was the highest of any metropolitan area in the country, a report from the National Association of Realtors said.
Related stories:
Black exodus emergency
Dateline:
08/13/2008San Francisco is losing its black population faster than any other large city in the United States — and the trend is unlikely to stop unless the city takes immediate action.
So says a draft report from an African American out-migration task force put together by the Mayor's Office last year. It wasn't published in final form early enough to have an impact on the June 3 election, when voters green-lighted Lennar Corp.'s plan to develop thousands of luxury condos in Bayview/Candlestick Point, one of the few remaining African American neighborhoods in San Francisco.
Related stories:
Western Addition Displacement Reparations Bill Moves Forward
Dateline:
12/31/1969Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s legislation giving descendants of those displaced by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency from the Western Addition priority in obtaining affordable housing, passed the Land Use Committee and will go before the Board of Supervisors on September 9.
The legislation is nicely timed – though not intentionally – with the African American Out-migration Task Force’s report that San Francisco’s black population has dropped faster than any other large U.S. city. While many of those displaced from the Western Addition in the 1960s were Japanese, two-thirds were African American.
Related stories:
Black population deserting S.F., study says
Dateline:
08/10/2008African Americans are leaving San Francisco because of substandard schools, a lack of affordable housing and the dearth of jobs and black culture, according to a report by a committee looking into the exodus.
The African American Out-migration Task Force, put together by the mayor's office last year to figure out what can be done to preserve the city's remaining black population and cultivate new residents, presented its findings at a public hearing Thursday called by Supervisor Chris Daly.
Related stories:
SF planners approve neighborhood changes
Dateline:
08/08/2008Former industrial zones that make up a quarter of the city's land would be rezoned to allow affordable housing to be built.
It requires developers of any new housing to rent or sell at least 15 percent of their homes at affordable levels.
Editorial: Probe discrimination in housing practices
Dateline:
08/08/2008IN THE 21ST CENTURY, one would have thought housing discrimination in the Bay Area was a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that apparently is not the case.
The Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity, a publicly supported nonprofit housing counseling agency, conducted tests in nine Bay Area communities and found landlords discriminated in 29 percent of the cases.
As the group's report concludes, "Although the days of seeing signs displaying the words, 'No coloreds' are long gone, the threads of racism continue to appear in the fabric of our American way of life."
S.F.'s long-awaited 4-neighborhood plan on tap
Dateline:
08/07/2008Thousands of new homes could be built in four neighborhoods on San Francisco's east side if the city's Planning Commission approves a plan today that tries to encourage development while preserving affordable housing and working-class industries.
Together the neighborhoods - the Mission, Showplace Square/Potrero Hill, east SoMa and the central waterfront - represent much of the heart of San Francisco's industrial past, but also opportunities for new construction of market-rate and affordably priced housing.
